FOSS Patents reports today that they have seen a letter dated March 19th, 2012 from Apple to the European Telecommunications Standards Institutes which details Apple’s commitment to offer royalty-free licensing of their new nano-SIM technology. The Cupertino-based corporation hopes to make this new smaller SIM card the standard for all smartphones…

The patent blog claims that a “perfectly reliable source” has notified them of this information and that even though there was previously a concern about Apple owning all the patents to this technology, this letter has done away with such concerns. If Apple’s manifesto goes through, then all manufactures would reap the benefits of this new technology — the best of which is that devices will be much thinner than before.

A perfectly reliable source that I can’t disclose has shown me a letter dated March 19, 2012 that a senior Apple lawyer sent to ETSI. The letter addresses the primary concern of critics of the proposal. The FT said that “the Apple-led proposal has caused some concern among its rivals that the US group might eventually own the patents”. But Apple’s letter has removed this roadblock, if it ever was any, through an unequivocal commitment to grant royalty-free licenses to any Apple patents essential to nano-SIM, provided that Apple’s proposal is adopted as a standard and that all other patent holders accept the same terms in accordance with the principle of reciprocity.